Not so long ago, the boos that echoed around Vitoria’s Buesa Arena on the arrival of King Juan Carlos for the basketball Copa del Rey final at the weekend would have surprised many Spaniards and scandalised quite a few others. Such an open display of hostility towards the monarch would have been almost unthinkable. And yet on Sunday, when the booing was so loud that the playing of the national anthem ahead of the game between Barcelona and Valencia was cut short, it no longer seemed all that surprising or shocking, such is the sliding esteem of the Spanish royal family. The most defining moment of the reign of Juan Carlos now looks so far away it could be from another era. In 1981, the … [Read more...] about Spain’s King Juan Carlos seeks to stem the opprobrium
Politics
The next Spain
There’s an overwhelming consensus all across Spain that “we can’t go on like this”. Yet there’s an equally determined belief within the Rajoy government that we can, and in fact will, go on like this until it somehow gets better. Which means that someone – either the government with its faith that everything will come out well, or the entire population of the country, who believe that it won’t – has got it wrong. In this article I will take it as an assumption that the existing state of Spain will not be able to survive long enough to hold general elections again in 2015, and that therefore Rajoy’s Partido Popular government will be the last of the 1978-model Kingdom of Spain. How will … [Read more...] about The next Spain
Life and trials of the rebel colonel
Seventy-four-year-old Colonel Amadeo Martínez Inglés certainly looks every bit the retired military officer as he marches in his uniform towards the little crowd outside the court. But he doesn’t sound like a typical army colonel. “The Third Republic will soon be born in Spain!” he declaims to the applause of his gathered supporters before entering the Audiencia Nacional, the high court that deals with terrorists, international gangsters and drugs traffickers, to face a 15-month prison sentence for his insults against the king. It’s April 2012 and he is accused of “Calumnies and Injuries Against the Crown” under Penal Code Article 490.3, a law which has already been quashed by the … [Read more...] about Life and trials of the rebel colonel
2013: Another rough ride for Spain
Last year presented probably the toughest baptism of fire for any Spanish prime minister since the transition to democracy, but Mariano Rajoy knows that this year will be just as challenging. The big problems facing his government in the coming months are, for the most part, those that dominated 2012: the markets and a pending bailout; rising unemployment; lack of growth; social unrest; and Catalonia’s push for independence. The bailout presents perhaps the most vexing problem for Rajoy, because it demands decisiveness from a notoriously equivocal politician. Although Spain’s borrowing costs have dropped from their alarming levels last summer following Mario Draghi’s assurances … [Read more...] about 2013: Another rough ride for Spain
Rajoy’s difficult year
A year after he took office on December 21, 2011, many Spaniards would be forgiven for asking: who is Mariano Rajoy? His first 12 months in power have been so full of contradictions that a clear image of the Spanish prime minister is yet to emerge. His conservative Partido Popular (PP) has one of the biggest congressional majorities Spain has seen. And with it, his government has embarked on one of the boldest reform programs of the democratic era, with opponents frequently accusing it of authoritarianism. Yet still Rajoy is seen as hesitant and equivocal, a politician being led by events and EU orders, rather than leading his people. “Mariano Rajoy governs without his own voice, … [Read more...] about Rajoy’s difficult year
Catalan election offers Mas hope of independence mandate
Sunday’s election in Catalonia is probably the most significant in the region since Spain’s transition to democracy in the late 1970s, due to the way the issue of independence has utterly dominated the campaign. Although the central government’s Partido Popular (PP) will not win, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy will follow the election extremely closely. The upsurge in pro-independence sentiment in Catalonia has suddenly emerged as Rajoy’s most urgent political challenge and he has struggled to deal with it effectively. Guy Hedgecoe examines the Catalan independence drive (Audio): Catalan Independence (Audio) A resounding win for the incumbent, Artur Mas of the CiU mainstream … [Read more...] about Catalan election offers Mas hope of independence mandate
Spain’s evictions push the defenceless over the edge
On November 9, as the police and bailiffs opened the door of a flat in Barakaldo, Gipuzkoa, to execute a mortgage repossession, 53-year-old Amaia Egaña climbed up onto a chair on her fourth-floor balcony and leapt to her death. Hers was the third suicide in as many weeks shortly before the moment of eviction, and it has apparently triggered a dramatic response on the part of Mariano Rajoy’s government, which announced its intention to suspend all evictions of “vulnerable families”, pending a reform of the mortgage law. It may surprise the more than 300 households evicted every day in Spain that their constitutional rights are being violated, but among the many promises of social justice … [Read more...] about Spain’s evictions push the defenceless over the edge
A necessary crisis for Spain’s Socialists
As the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) digests its disastrous performance in recent Galician and Basque elections, struggles to find a coherent and convincing response to the upsurge in Catalan nationalist sentiment, and its powerful Andalusian faction mulls overthrowing national leader Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, it’s hard not to look back to February of this year. The Socialists had confirmed Rubalcaba’s appointment as party leader in the wake of the 2011 general election disaster. His only serious challenger, Carme Chacón, watched as he made his acceptance speech and she wept. According to many, they were tears of anger and disappointment at how the party old guard had blocked … [Read more...] about A necessary crisis for Spain’s Socialists
Jesús Eguiguren: the last negotiator
One film conspicuous by its absence at this year's San Sebastián festival was Ángel Amigo's 80-minute documentary, Memorias de un conspirador (or ‘Memoirs of a Conspirator’), about incumbent Basque Socialist Party President Jesús Eguiguren. In the film, due for release this autumn, the leader of the Basque Socialist Party (PSE) offers a personal perspective on his more than 30-year career in politics, in particular his dealings with ETA. It was talks instigated “off the record” by Eguiguren and former Batasuna spokesman, Arnaldo Otegi in 2002 that eventually paved the way for the 2006 negotiations between ETA and Zapatero's government. Memorias director Amigo was nonchalant about the … [Read more...] about Jesús Eguiguren: the last negotiator
Gibraltar: Fish, football and frontiers
On September 25, Mariano Rajoy took the podium at the UN General Assembly in New York, where Spain was hoping to win a rotating seat on the Security Council. The Spanish prime minister chose the moment to press for joint talks with the UK about the sovereignty of Gibraltar. He called on London to “reinitiate bilateral dialogue on the decolonisation of Gibraltar… We have now lost too many years.” Unsurprisingly, Spain failed to secure a seat on the Security Council, and London issued a waspish response, denying that decolonisation was even an appropriate concept: “The 2006 Gibraltar Constitution provides for a modern and mature relationship between Gibraltar and the UK. This description … [Read more...] about Gibraltar: Fish, football and frontiers